|
| Thread: Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era – Official Reveal Trailer |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 ... 10 20 ... 25 26 27 28 29 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
|
posted June 07, 2025 08:21 AM |
|
|
Correct me, if I'm wrong..
I doubt an artificial HoMM3, you can't feel well, because c and/or d is a snowy, it depends on your sex, of course..
Why? Wrong question.. AI created awesome HoMM3 graphics, why we can't play it? An artificial HoMM3 isn't awesome, its H5.. So AI can also analyzed and fixed SS, e.g. Eagle Eye..
I don't buy game in summer 2025, but I wait for other, my bro, etc.. Let's see later..
____________
Fight MWMs - stand teach
|
|
MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
|
|
posted June 10, 2025 05:33 PM |
|
|
We got a double today.
First, a new video Devlog focusing on spell schools, with some notes on new systems like spell research and upgrading.
Second, a reveal for Halon, who is a Druid with a very Solmyr-esque (and ridiculously powerful) speciality.
|
|
Etharil
Shaper of Lore
|
|
posted June 10, 2025 05:39 PM |
|
|
MurlocAggroB said:
We got a double today.
First, a new video Devlog focusing on spell schools, with some notes on new systems like spell research and upgrading.
Second, a reveal for Halon, who is a Druid with a very Solmyr-esque (and ridiculously powerful) speciality.
Thanks, I was just about to post! ^^
____________
|
|
The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
|
|
posted June 10, 2025 09:48 PM |
|
|
Can someone summarize the video devlog please? Can't watch
____________
Friend-shaped
|
|
Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
|
|
posted June 11, 2025 03:20 AM |
|
|
It showed the various magic schools and spells in the game. There are 4 schools which are not elemental based, like in Heroes 5. They seem to loosely correlate with Heroes 5's magic schools, in fact.
Daylight Magic = Buffs and holy magic.
Nightshade Magic = Debuffs and control.
Primal Magic = Offensive elemental spells and antimagic spells.
Arcane = Utility, battlefield manipulation, and stuff like clone.
Mage guilds return, but now you can do spell research like in HoTA. You can also spend a alchemical dust(the mysterious resource everyone was trying to figure out based on the gameplay trailer) to upgrade spells with new and improved effects, such as turning some spells into mass spells.
It seems pretty cool. They claim that they've made the gap in usefulness between magic and might skills smaller, but they said they'll explain what that means at a later time.
____________
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted June 11, 2025 11:51 AM |
|
|
As much as I admire them borrowing from HotA, I’ve never been too keen on the spell research mechanic. Part of the magic of the series, for me, has always been the element of luck, that eventual "unfair" edge and the need to adapt to whatever you're given. With research, there's a risk it just turns into a race for the strongest spells every time.
____________
|
|
Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
|
|
posted June 11, 2025 12:15 PM |
|
|
UbiSnow
____________
Fight MWMs - stand teach
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted June 11, 2025 01:34 PM |
|
|
Ghost said:
UbiSnow
Well I mean, it's just one feature, no need to be so radical 
____________
|
|
DIEGIS
Supreme Hero
power of Zamolxis
|
|
posted June 11, 2025 02:22 PM |
|
|
MurlocAggroB said:
They've gotta be ramping up to something right now. The only reveals we've had since the Temple rework have been two random map objects, both of which were on the Sylvan native terrain and feel like leftovers from that reveal season. That's basically nothing for three weeks. I thought there might something today because Friday, but no, nothin'.
I pray it's an EA release date announcement, or even a surprise drop.
hmmm...not a chance! this week also, don t believe we ll have smth!
____________
dacian falx behind you
-knowledge itself is power-
|
|
The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
|
|
posted June 11, 2025 03:40 PM |
|
|
Thank you Rimgrabber!
____________
Friend-shaped
|
|
Etharil
Shaper of Lore
|
|
posted June 12, 2025 05:59 PM |
|
|
|
Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
|
|
posted June 12, 2025 10:58 PM |
|
|
Now this is an interesting idea! Dracoliches not as a necropolis creature but as a neutral that you get for sacrificing dragons at a map object.
____________
|
|
needlesworn
Tavern Dweller
|
posted June 12, 2025 11:56 PM |
|
|
Not the Heroes we need
In August 2024, a formerly unknown studio called Unfrozen suddenly announced Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era.
At the same time, Ubisoft experienced a deep crisis, with major internal issues and a drop in shares. The whole Might & Magic series had been basically abandoned for years. Aside from a few flashlights here and there, it seemed like Ubisoft had moved on.
So where did this new game come from? What’s actually happening with Ubisoft and its franchise? What’s taking place behind the façade of the “big comeback” and is it something worth getting excited about?
Let’s take a look inside and break it down.
It all started back in 2020, when the Unfrozen studio from St. Petersburg, Russia created a game called Iratus: Lord of the Dead, inspired by Darkest Dungeon. It did pay off, and the studio’s next project was a prototype of a Heroes-like game meant to be pitched to Ubisoft.
The team got the licence. Now they could create a game in this setting on these conditions:
Ubisoft provided them with minimal investments, so they had to look for investments on their own.
Ubisoft controlled their marketing strategy.
All the content of the game was subject to Ubisoft’s revision.
Unfrozen’s Lead Narrative Designer, Alexandra “Alphyna” Golubeva, was given a blank check to create a new story. The team decided to make a brand new world, which was a common thing for this game series even before Ubisoft bought the franchise. The new world was mostly inspired, story-wise and aesthetically, by Might and Magic: Heroes V and a bit of Heroes of Might and Magic III. It did take a lot from the world of Ashan (Heroes V-VII) and its Warhammerish style, including the concept of the Dungeon faction and its Dark Elves, but it also had the team’s new ideas and concepts.
The most obvious reason for such a decision was Ubisoft having their own plans for the old universe and the world of Enroth (where Heroes I-III and M&M VI-VIII took place). Ever since they got the franchise, they tried to turn the Might & Magic universe into something it was never meant to be.
First, Ubisoft created a new world (Ashan) with new visuals and no connections with the original universe created by NWC (New World Computing). While the NWC games took place in different worlds, there always were connections between them: characters travelling between the planets, hidden ancient technologies, the worldbuilding being consistent through all the games. But Ashan was different, with no technologies, no connection with other civilizations. It just existed. Of more than a dozen games created in this world, only two were truly successful: Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
Ubisoft did admit their failure and the Might & Magic team was dismissed, including the World Manager Erwan Le Breton and Lead Level Designer/Narrative Consultant Julien “Marzhin” Pirou.
Now they wanted to reimagine the old universe and make a new version of Heroes III: the same characters in a story made more convenient and casual. They were looking for a way to repeat its success, but get rid of the NWC’s legacy with its old school style, different worlds and sci-fi worldbuilding. Basically, they wanted to do what Disney did to Star Wars.
Among their ideas of reinterpreting the story of Enroth, some were really weird: for example, the isolationist race of Snow Elves now had a background of great expansionists and the continent of Jadame was turned upside down and moved to the southern hemisphere. These changes make no sense and give nothing to the story; they sound like some strange fanfic turned into canon. Is it their way to bring something of their own into “the great story reborn”?
One thing is clear: after all these years and management changes, Ubisoft still persists in their fight with the canon. They still try to sell us nostalgia in some crooked form of poor-designed casual fantasy, making no heed for their mistakes. It shows that someone in the top management insists on that.
Anyway, the Unfrozen wanted to do nothing with it, so the concept of a new world was born.
When the war started between Russia and Ukraine, Ubisoft declared Russia and Russians didn’t exist to them anymore, so the team members had to relocate (at least, officially): they moved to Cyprus, Tajikistan, Poland and other countries. Back then, a lot of ex-employees of Riot Games and Blizzard (King Games) joined the studio. They brought the distinctive mobile-game style to the project.
HotA's (Horn of the Abyss, the largest Heroes III mod) new town was released on December 30, 2023. Although deemed ambiguous due to the town’s industrial vibe, it was a big event among the Heroes’ fans. It also brought some balance and skills rework, so people loved it.
Seeing this, Ubisoft got interested in Jadame and forced Unfrozen to rewrite the story. The Factory storyline took place on Jadame, the third continent of the Enroth world which never appeared in the Heroes series, where Might and Magic VIII took place. Unfrozen were to move their narrative into this setting, so the HoMM III design, turned into an Ashan-like lore, now was turned again—into the original world.
It could be a good thing for the old universe fans, but… These changes happened pretty late during the development. When the game was announced, nothing was adapted to the old setting—there were factions, creatures and locations that were clearly inspired by Ashan and could never exist in Jadame. Even though this story does take place centuries before Heroes III (the team itself can’t come to an agreement, how many centuries exactly), such design demonstrates total neglect of anything associated with the old universe. Only the names remain.
The important thing is that the CEO of Unfrozen, Denis “Gromos” Fedorov, lies to the fans about it. He claims that the game was being created for the setting of Jadame from the start.
Soon after the announcement, there were some minor design changes due to the fans’ mass attacks—for example, Dark Elves’ pale skin became reddish, like it was in the NWC setting, and one of their unit designs now resembles that of the Might and Magic series. But it doesn’t change the fact that Unfrozen’s Dark Elves live in dungeons instead of merchant cities like they did on Jadame, and that the Murmurwoods location has nothing in common with their Sylvan faction. But Ubisoft allows it, as they couldn’t care less about the old canon; they only care about preserving names associated with the series’ success and their own ideas of what this universe really is. As for Unfrozen, their main focus is cybersports, so the story is still in a pretty poor state.
The official community, moderated by Unfrozen, is poisoned with toxic positivity. In order to create an image of great success and their respect to the NWC legacy, their CMs delete comments expressing doubts or alternative opinions in their socials and leave comments with praises using newly created accounts. On YouTube, they have their brand ambassadors focused on the European communities, who start to praise the game once they start to get paid. Later, we’ll talk about Orange, who was such an ambassador for Russia. Among other Youtube sponsored by Olden Era there are HeroesTakeTurns from Germany and Silent from Russia, the latter taking Orange’s place.
Ever since the announcement, Unfrozen claims to be a team of “true Heroes fans creating this game for other fans”, but there’s no evidence of that (except for dummy game cases we can see in the CEO’s interviews). The slavic Heroes fan community is well-known and diverse, with mod-makers, map-makers, artists, musicians, writers, even developers of HoMM V and lots of people who shared their feedback on such content. The Unfrozen guys, on the other hand, came out of nowhere, probably to disappear into nowhere. We can assume that, because Ubisoft have tried to sell the “true Heroes game from fans to fans” narrative before.
In their arrogance, Unfrozen criticize in public those who they deem to be Olden Era’s rivals—most of them, the HotA Crew. Their primary goal is to “steal” the auditory of HotA and they act like they already did it, like they created a far superior product. Still in their boasting, they steal HotA’s concepts and art, like environment objects, creature banks design and units. Graphics of HotA appeared in Olden Era promo materials with minimal or no changes at all. Since HotA never was a commercial project, there’s nothing they can actually do about it.
Such “appropriations” could be a show of Unfrozen’s respect for HotA, and it wouldn’t be the only case of such appreciation for HotA Crew, here’s the proof that it’s just some dirty rivalry:
In 2024, Unfrozen invited Xel, who was a member of HotA Crew and a well-known figure in the Russian Might and Magic community, as a narrative consultant. By now, he’s the only real member of the fan community who’s working on the “game made by true fans.” Soon after that they forced him to quit HotA, even though him being in the Crew wasn’t a problem when he first joined Unfrozen.
Soon after that Orange (Olden Era brand ambassador) posted an interview with Xel. In this interview, Orange tried to sell the idea that “the best of the best” people leave HotA to make Olden Era, and that Olden Era is the future of the game series, while HotA will inevitably wither and die. Still, while Orange criticized HotA’s problems on his YouTube channel, he couldn’t hide that Olden Era faces them as well, and that they haven’t found a solution as well.
There are fans of HotA in the Unfrozen studio who disagree with such public behavior and don’t see HotA as their rival (since it is a non-commercial mod), but they can’t change anything in this regard.
This wasn’t the only video where Orange gave false praises to Olden Era. “False” is important, because he and his team knew well about what’s really going on within the studio. But the Unfrozen’s marketer got rid of the team unilaterally due to their low payback.
The Orange team was left without finances and ceased to exist, but not before they declared that they’ve got a lot of dirt on the inner state of the studio, and should such info ever come out, the whole project would be done for. Anyway, they expressed their opinion that Olden Era has very little chance to become a good game. Sure they couldn’t share any proof due to NDA, so we have to rely on other sources.
As we already know, Ubisoft controlled all the content created and sent their curator to Unfrozen. Behind their back, the studio employees call this person “Eurocomissar”, “Gauleiter” and “Overseer”. The thing is, after the setting was switched to Jadame, things became really bad, as the studio lost any freedom at all. Some decisions coming from Ubisoft are so absurd and confusing that the “Eurocomissar” themselves tries to fight these to no avail.
In times like these, a team should unite around their leader. Alas, instead of supporting his employees, Gromos frustrates them by constantly neglecting them, ignoring their expertise, changing his decisions and demanding to combine things that can’t be combined. At the same time, he is incompetent gameplay-wise. Despite the fake cases of games like HoMM and King’s Bounty shown in his interviews, his ideas and decisions prove that he never played most of them. The whole studio management is based on the director’s spontaneous desires with experts being ignored.
Another case of the team fighting windmills is when Gromos wants to implement the HoMM characters he likes with no concern to the canon or the timeline. Despite all the strictness, Ubisoft has no regard for the canon. He’s allowed to rewrite it if he wants to. The team tries to resist such decisions, but they are afraid of confronting him; behind his back, they call him the Warthog for his ill temper.
Since there’s no consistent vision coming from the CEO, the studio’s vision is divided into three parts. First, there are Ubisoft and their ideas of creating a second Ashan under the old universe’s label. Second, there are ex-Riot and ex-Blizzard designers, who transmit the style of the games they worked with before, either willingly or not. And finally, there are those who want to preserve the old canon, or at least as much of it as possible. This inconsistency exists, and there are no attempts to resolve it.
So the Lead Narrative Designer, Alphyna, left the team. The official reason was her burning out and having no vacation for years, but the team knows it’s far from the truth. Alphyna was fighting against both Ubisoft and Gromos, and since the latter had no regard for her as an expert, she finally had enough of that. She left, leaving Xel as the narrative designer instead of her.
Here comes another problem for the studio. They do not realize that narrative design, plot and gameplay are in fact different aspects of a game, and that different people with different hard skills should be responsible for these. As for Xel, he might be an expert as a narrative consultant, but he isn’t an expert narrative designer, for he has no such background, experience or time to get the necessary skills. This isn’t the only case of such disregard for expertise; people do work they aren’t meant to do, as if it were the 00s. And of course there are designers who have no interest or understanding of the Heroes series, and whatever they create, that can’t be the new Heroes product Olden Era claims to be.
The same goes for the studio management, with one person having few different roles at once. It leads to poor management and lack of trust for it. Due to Gromos’ decision-making and changes of heart, there are crunches, and the investments are running out and lead to major feature cuts: for example, there will be no underground in the game (but hey, they have the dungeon faction with the Dark Elves in it!).
We can’t expect a good product with such a level of expertise from both the team and the management. The quality of the trailer (supervised by Ubisoft, since they control the marketing) proves the point. The team is burning out and stagnates at the same time, and Early Access is still pending.
Still, where some features get cut, new ones appear—not as useful, but still deemed necessary. As we mentioned before, Ubisoft insists on turning the map of Jadame upside down. Since there are loyal fans of the old universe among the team, they decided to make a rotatable map, get rid of any directions (such as east, west, etc.) within the game texts and avoid making coastal locations, so that the continent’s orientation in Might and Magic VIII could still be considered canon.
And still, there’s hope. Some employees unite in Signal chats where they discuss their plans to ditch Gromos the Warthog. They are ready to strike if this will convince him to leave, hoping to make the working atmosphere a bit healthier.
There’s a future leader in these chats who has support and may become the new head of the team should this happen.
But at this point, even the developers don’t know if they want this game to be a success. If it fails, it would mean their efforts have been spent for nothing; still, if it succeeds, Ubisoft will continue to defile the corpse of the game series they once loved and enjoyed.
Nothing good may come from a short-sighted company with management incompetent enough to allow statements like “The games you buy don’t belong to you and gamers have to get used to it” after withdrawing licences bought as physical copies (The Crew game case). Not like there was much hope, though, with their latest failures like XDefiant or the unfamous AAAA Skull and Bones project, which only has less than 1000 active players.
Well, no, this is not the Heroes we need.
|
|
Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
|
|
posted June 13, 2025 12:29 AM |
|
|
If that's all true (and it would explain some design decisions) that definitely bodes extremely poorly, and it would also be very on-brand for Ubisoft. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
____________
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted June 13, 2025 01:10 AM |
|
|
That would make for a cool dramatic campaign 
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
posted June 13, 2025 10:17 AM |
|
Edited by Galaad at 10:17, 13 Jun 2025.
|
Moderator's note
This post raises some strong claims and perspectives about Olden Era and Ubisoft. As nothing here has been independently verified, please treat it as personal commentary.
Feel free to share your thoughts — whether in agreement or not — and as always, let’s keep things thoughtful and on-topic.
____________
|
|
The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 13, 2025 02:51 PM |
|
|
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some truth to it. For a game marketed as a return to the old universe, there is very little of the old universe here. And, the art style is much more in-line with Ashan than any of the NWC games.
It was also super bizarre when the lady who was part of the initial announcement and hype around the game suddenly wasn’t apart of the team anymore. She seemed very genuine and enthusiastic during her interviews, but then she’s just off the project entirely because of overwork? What? No forced vacation to recharge? Very strange.
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted June 13, 2025 07:08 PM |
|
|
All I can say is I don't know and I will let the game speak for itself. If it turns out good as I hope it will, that's all I care about. That said..
[was given a blank check to create a new story]
For a game starting fresh, the devs seem pretty well versed with the existing lore. One can argue about interpretations but imo they would have no reason to dive that deep, especially if they wanted to do their own thing. I mean unless Xel has been drilling them into Jadamean lore daily heh.
[They were looking for a way to repeat its success, but get rid of the NWC’s legacy with its old school style, different worlds and sci-fi worldbuilding.]
And yet there are clear sci fi elements when H1-3 never showed any openly. You'd think those would be completely eliminated or at least, there never was any reason for them to exist.
[their CMs delete comments expressing doubts or alternative opinions in their socials]
They are sure leaving a lot of those in the open.
[Unfrozen criticize in public those who they deem to be Olden Era’s rivals—most of them, the HotA Crew]
I haven't seen anything like that but I'll have to ask. Has anyone here? And I don't mean about their campaign design, that is a whole different story..
[The Orange team was left without finances and ceased to exist, but not before they declared that they’ve got a lot of dirt on the inner state of the studio, and should such info ever come out, the whole project would be done for.]
So they can totally destroy unfrozen and have reason to want to do so.. but don't?
[they sound like some strange fanfic turned into canon]
Ironically, that's the idea I get from the whole post. Because of the conspiracy and drama.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
|
|
posted June 13, 2025 07:27 PM |
|
|
I don't buy any of that. The exclusion of Tower/Academy since there's no wizard faction in MM8, the inclusion of a bug-themed faction on a continent that already has a population of sapient bugs AND lore reasons not to have a standard Inferno, and the sixth faction being based on the very MM8 themed Plane Between Planes all point to this being the design from the start. That's way too much to have totally changed starting from January of 2024. The strongest evidence, Dungeon having dark elves, can easily be what I've been saying from the start - distilling themes from across the franchise so that you can have your Jadamean dark elves and your classic Dungeon town at the same time.
Personally, I think they were keeping it loose for the opposite reason. Unfrozen has stated that if they hadn't secured the rights to Heroes of Might and Magic, they would've continued making their game as a "serial numbers filed off" original IP with heavy HoMM influences. If you keep it somewhat vague and generic, that makes it much easier to disentangle from Jadame or push harder in that direction.
Can't speak to the rest of the post, but the fact that the faction thing is so easily debunked puts the rest of it into extreme question.
----
Anyways, I came here to say that EA was delayed to an unknown timeframe, still aiming for 2025. Not positive news, but far from unexpected at this point. Just to prove that they mean it when they say they're listening to feedback, they also uploaded the new Necropolis town screen, which like the Temple one looks so dynamic now.
|
|
AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted June 13, 2025 08:51 PM |
|
|
I don't think Ubisoft promote its 'Ashan vision' of the Universe with such a zeal as described above. They just want to ensure the new game appeases the post-NWC audience as well. I estimate the Olden Era as a potentially successful game which might be a replacement of HoMM III for modern players. Like, tell me sincerely, do you still play Heroes with those heartwarming and wonderous feelings as you played it when you were 15-25? You just get old and none of the game will leave that beautiful scar on your soul as Heroes, just believe me. You outlived your best game. But people who are 15-25 now, probably, find in Olden Era 'those vibes' which we found and kept.
My biggest concern is graphics. Nice in its own way but not for me. But who am I to suggest my tastes are paramount? 
|
| |
|
|
